Dental malpractice in harlem
One hundred years ago today … Edna Shreaves of 129 West 134th Street visited Hector Polk, dentist, who would mistreat her so badly that she wound up taking him to court.
Let’s back up. Yesterday, we posted a photograph of Lenox Avenue between 134th and 135th Streets. Today, we zoom in on some of the businesses visible on the Avenue. There are signs for a music shop, a wine shop, a bond shop, and a drugstore, “Dr. Polk’s Drugs”
Note: When we posted the photo yesterday, we cited our source, which had the photo dated 1921. However, another (very similar) source dates the image as from Armistice Day, 1919. We buy that, as it would explain the crowd and the flags.
"Armistice Day; Lenox Ave., 4 West 134th Street; Harlem, 1919" Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
In her court testimony of November 8, 1922, Shreaves describes how, on February 10, 1921, she was treated by a dentist who operated out of the back of a drugstore on “Lenox Avenue between 134th and 15th Streets.” That person was Polk, who put her in a chair, and, upon hearing of her toothache, said he would have to remove the tooth in question. “He took a pair of forceps and put a needle, or something in the tooth and said he would cocaine the tooth.” (52-3)
According to Shraves, she went home and spat blood all night. She returned to Polk the next day, but he refused to treat her, as he would in a subsequent visits. Only after seeing another dentist did she learn that there was a broken piece of the infected tooth remaining in her gums. She continued to suffer pain throughout the year, saying it subsided finally in January of 1922.
Whatever the result of the lawsuit, Polk continued to practice dentistry. In 1925 he was advertising his services in the Age.
New York Age, 12 September 1925, p. 10. Chronicling America.
New York Age, 12 September 1925, p. 10. Chronicling America.
Not much information is easily available about Polk. Could it be that her was also a songwriter? In 1921 one Hector Polk of New York City copyrighted (along with co-composer Chauncy Fine) a now-lost tune called “Twilight’s Golden Dreams.”
References:
Supreme Court–Appellate Term, First Department. Google Books.
–Jonathan Goldman, February 10, 2021
TAGS: Harlem, dentistry, medical malpractice, lawsuit